Tuesday, 11 August 2009

Sega - SG-1000 (No-Intro 20081130)

"The SG-1000 (エスジー・セン, Esujī Sen), which stands for Sega Game 1000, was a cartridge-based video game console manufactured by Sega. This system marked Sega's first entry into the home video game hardware business, and while the system was not popular, it provided the basis for the more successful Sega Master System.

The SG-1000 was first released to the Japanese market on July 15, 1983. Coincidentally, this is the exact same day that the Nintendo Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System) was released in Japan, for ¥15,000. The console reached minor success in that market and sold moderately well within Asia until 1985. The system was launched in New Zealand as released by Grandstand Leisure Limited, Australia and in other countries, such as Italy, Spain, and South Africa. The console in its original form was never launched in North America.

Game manufacturer Tsukada Original produced the Othello Multivision, an SG-1000 clone. Bit Corp's Dina 2-in-1 ColecoVision clone was brought to North America by a company called Telegames. Telegames called its clone the Telegames Personal Arcade, which could play ColecoVision and SG-1000 games.

A caveat is the SG-1000's surprisingly wide availability on Taiwan's secondary market. This console is highly significant in Taiwan as one of its first and best-remembered consoles, where it was manufactured and sold (very briskly) under license as "阿羅士" ['Lou Shi']. This was striking in that in the same time period from 1983 to 1986, Famicom games were widely pirated as standalone and multi-carts (replete with rudimentary switch banks to select the active ROM), as well as no less than three different pirated versions of the Atari 2600 with boastful monikers characteristic of the times ("冒險家" ['Adventurer'], "賓果" ['Delight'], "強棒創造者" ['Steadfast Creator']).

Taiwan, among a few other countries, also received a "Mark IV" version of the console (most likely a modified Sega Master System II) and the Mark naming convention was further extended to the Mega Drive/Genesis ('Mark V')." (Wikipedia)